


Why Don't You Save Me? (From Myself, If I'm Tired)

by thegrumblingirl



Series: Why Don't You Save Me? (1 Million Celebration) [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Bitterness, Corvo POV, Daud has been lightly stabbed, Emotional Baggage, Exes, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Pre-Canon, Requited Unrequited Love, Snark, Sort Of, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, the kinds of enemy you want to kiss so badly, wow nobody is having a good time here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 10:49:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20563055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl
Summary: There was no mistaking the man currently occupying one of the chairs in front of his desk — the one closer to the fire, stoked to brighter flame than usual at this hour. It was wet and dark outside, even during the day. Rain and Nets were hardly kind, here in Gristol. He abandoned the thought for the dark hair on the head of the man sitting with his back to him. Hair brushed back, neck unbent above shoulders wide inside a deep red coat. The coat was new.Corvo paused in the open door. Watching.“There’s a draft.” A voice as familiar as terrifying in its depth. It was coarse, but its tone was almost placid, if not for the layer of steel underneath.





	Why Don't You Save Me? (From Myself, If I'm Tired)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Resri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resri/gifts).

> To celebrate posting 1 MILLION words on this here AO3, I [gave away ten request slots](https://screwtheprinceimtakingthehorse.tumblr.com/post/187537485520/grumbles-1-million-give-away) (all gone now). This is the second, for Resri <3
> 
> Title taken from [Kan Wakan: Why Don't You Save Me?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAiIH_egwlY)

Corvo's steps were weary as he trudged up the stairs towards his quarters. Today’s council and Parliament sessions had taken as much out of him as Jessamine, he thought, if just for the fact that he was not allowed to speak. His purpose was to defend her against assassins, not her own politicians’ words and insults. Incessant questions about Emily — ‘as to the Princess’ heritage,’ Ramsey had put it, and Corvo wished he could have driven something sharp through the man’s hand where it had rested, patronisingly, on the banister below Jessamine’s seat.

She was four years old, and already Emily Drexel Lela Kaldwin had been the centre of attention — and rumour — all her life.

They had known that it would not be easy, but reality as it bore down on them now was still nigh untenable. Still, they would persevere and Jessamine would prove her mettle — she would win out over her detractors and the doubts, and Emily would be accepted as heir to the throne. It would be a gruelling fight, but she would persist; and Corvo would stand beside her, silent.

Tonight, Jessamine had wished to be alone with their little girl, and he did not begrudge her this. They had spent the night before entangled in her bed, Emily asleep between them, preparing for the day ahead, and tonight they would each take stock, to reconvene the next day. It was a practice that had served them well, and allowed for their need to be their own anchor as well as each other’s.

Arrived at his door, Corvo looked forward to shedding the burdens of the day. Opening it, he understood that the day was not yet over.

*

There was no mistaking the man currently occupying one of the chairs in front of his desk — the one closer to the fire, stoked to brighter flame than usual at this hour. It was wet and dark outside, even during the day. Rain and Nets were hardly kind, here in Gristol. He abandoned the thought for the dark hair on the head of the man sitting with his back to him. Hair brushed back, neck unbent above shoulders wide inside a deep red coat. The coat was new.

Corvo paused in the open door. Watching.

“There’s a draft.” A voice as familiar as terrifying in its depth. It was coarse, but its tone was almost placid, if not for the layer of steel underneath.

Corvo stepped inside, closed the door. It would not do to let the servants catch a glimpse.

“Daud.” It had been a while — he did not say. A great many things between them had gone unsaid. This was hardly the night to break old habits.

“Royal Protector,” Daud returned, barely turning in the chair to acknowledge him.

“Forgive me for not addressing you by your title,” Corvo said as he made his way behind his desk, to sit and to _see_ his guest. Guest: that was the polite word for it. No-one bade he enter.

“It was hardly of my choosing.”

“No. Just your occupation was.” Corvo did not conceal the rancour he felt. It was too late in the day for that.

“How long has it been?” Daud asked instead, and Corvo had to think.

“Three years?”

“Four,” Daud corrected him, his gaze on the papers littering Corvo’s desk — none out of place. If he was looking for something, perhaps he had not found it yet.

“Four years,” Corvo echoed, speaking past the knot at the base of his throat. “You’ve been busy.”

“So have you,” Daud shot back as if prepared for it. “Both of you.”

“If that is supposed to be an oblique reference—”

“I’m sorry, was it oblique?” Daud’s tone was cutting.

Corvo ground his teeth. “Have you come to quarrel?” He dared Daud to meet his eyes. “Or to make a fool of one of us?” By the twist of Daud’s lip, he could guess whether he thought he was succeeding.

“The water lock is vulnerable,” Daud commented as though on a turn of the weather. “It’s too easy, even—” he stopped himself. “Even if I had no powers.”

Corvo could not help but wonder whether that was what he had meant to say.

“I will take it under advisement,” he replied, as if he had not just been informed by an assassin in league with the Void that the veritable fortress that guarded the Seat of the Empire had a damned weak spot. An assassin who had made his way into the Royal Protector’s private chambers without drawing one glance of suspicion. Who had once told him: ‘Should I ever receive a contract to take your precious Empress, don’t worry. You’ll see me coming.’ Had their bargain changed? For better, or for worse?

“Is this your warning?” Corvo asked into the tense silence, the meaning behind the words chafing against the familiarity of the question, the lack of need for context. But wait — was it familiarity, or that they had spoken so little in fifteen years that Daud would not be spoilt for choice as to what Corvo was asking?

Daud himself seemed uncertain.

“No,” he said. He had never looked so uncomfortable.

“Then what are you doing here? This can hardly be a friendly visit.” Corvo could not make heads or tails of it — nor of himself. The one secret he had ever kept from Jessamine, and it was the most deadly it could have been. Having known a boy named Daud in the streets of Karnaca, having carried sorrow in his heart over his disappearance when Corvo was but fourteen. Having found him again years later, stationed off the coast of Serkonos, fighting pirates menacing the small, dotted isles there. Having let him go. Meeting him again in this here city, marked by the Void and very nearly short an eye. And then, again, after the poster decried that the Knife of Dunwall had a face, after all. A face he knew.

He had met him only once after that. Had let him go, one more time. Had extracted a promise Daud might never intend to keep.

“I’ve never lied to you, bodyguard,” Daud grated now, reminding him of the present. Then, the blow: “Does she look like you?”

Corvo’s hands clenched into fists and uncurled again, and he knew he should not take the bait.

“She has my eyes,” he said, abruptly hoarse.

“Better than your nose,” Daud returned with a certainty that bordered on impertinence. Corvo was not quick to anger. But he felt it rise inside him now. Was it the pressure of the day, or Daud? The Knife seemed to have no compassion for his nerves as he sneered at him. But then, he must have had a trying day himself — or perhaps it was being here that proved the hardship — for he raised his left hand to rub at his forehead a moment later, his eyebrows knotted together. His jaw was tight, and Corvo knew that tell.

He knew, too, that Daud was right-handed to a fault, no matter that he shot with his left.

Slowly, finally, he let his eyes roam to take in the remainder of Daud’s appearance — the way he was sitting, listing to one side in the chair, the way his face looked pale despite the warmth from the fire. A button on the collar of his short was hardly open but _missing_. And most damningly, his coat, that glaringly red coat that Corvo would have thought him too cautious for and tried not to ponder its reasoning, was unbuttoned to the waist. Daud’s right hand was slipped inside.

At Corvo’s glare, Daud sighed. Then, he removed his hand, turning up the palm. It was covered in blood.

“Outsider’s eyes,” Corvo balked, pushing back his own chair before he had quite resolved what to do. “What happened?”

Daud’s expression remained stoic as Corvo crossed the room to him; but when Corvo stood before him, hesitated, and then knelt in between this chair and the other, he looked away from him as if struck.

“Show me,” Corvo fairly demanded.

It was a battle easily carried out on Daud’s face, expressive as it was Corvo and, perhaps, no-one else. But one bout decided it, and Daud reached with his left to shove the coat out of the way, for Corvo to see where the other hand had rested, putting pressure on a wound in his side. Daud’s white shirt was as red as his coat.

“Shit,” Corvo hissed through his teeth, and looked back up at Daud. It was now he received the thin sheen of sweat on his brow, the way his skin looked clammy. He really couldn’t look Corvo in the eye, and that was more worrying than anything else. Corvo knew him as so _steady_. Tightly controlled, even as a boy. (It was luck that he had let Corvo learn his ways back then.)

Corvo had always admired and hated that about him. Steady in a fight. Steady when he said he hadn’t thought much about Corvo at all.

Was there any treasure to be found in the past?

“You Void-damned fool,” he started in, nevertheless gently pulling Daud’s hand away to see the damage. “Bleeding all over _my_ upholstery in the middle of the night — coming _here_, to the Tower,” he admonished. “Coming to _me_,” he concluded, and some of the anger ran out of his voice, only to be replaced by fury at being used so ill. “Who am I, your night nurse?”

“Corvo—“

“Three years, Daud,” Corvo snapped. “There years and not a word, only your bloody calling cards left all across the city’s noble houses, a trail of blood instead of polite invitations. Lord Merriweather was a _friend_.” He was breathing harshly now, and he reminded himself to settle down.

“None of these people are _your friends_, Corvo,” Daud said to his downturned face. “And they are barely hers.”

“At least he agreed with her,” Corvo growled. “An ally with superficial motives is better than we can get in some of the other voting blocks.”

“‘We’? Void, Corvo listen to—”

“Enough,” Corvo cut him off. The wound was not too deep, but it needed stitches, lest Daud lose even more blood. He looked up. “Where did this happen?”

“Estate District,” Daud rasped.

“And you came here for..?”

“It was closer.”

Closer — on the way, then. There had been rumour circulating that Daud and his band of Whalers were hiding out to the South-West, perhaps in Rudshore.

“Why take that risk? What did you find? What did you _hear?”_

“Nothing to concern you,” Daud replied, and Corvo could not tell whether it was a lie.

“You need a surgeon,” he changed tack, and made to rise. “I’m calling for Sokolov.”

“No, you’re not.” Daud’s left hand clamped down on Corvo’s shoulder. “I’m not going to be poked and prodded at by that old goat, only to see you hang for consorting with a wanted assassin in the morning.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Corvo said acidly, “if only you had thought of that before _breaking into my office_.”

“This isn’t your problem,” Daud huffed.

“You made it mine.”

“I only need a place to rest. The elixir I took is already working. Another half hour, I’ll be out of your hair.”

At this, Corvo shook off Daud’s hand and got up. Shaking his head, he went to his dresser.

“And how would you suggest we pass the time? Playing a few rounds of Nancy?”

“I was hoping for a quiet smoke,” Daud said all too lightly.

Corvo found what he wanted and slammed shut the dresser drawer. Daud did not flinch.

“Take off your coat.”

“Attano—”

“I need room to work.” Corvo returned to the desk and set down the kit of field dressing and medical supplies. “Off.”

Daud looked up at him where he was looming up over him. Seconds passed, while Corvo removed his own coat and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

“Fine.”

*

Corvo worked in silence, cleaning and disinfecting and closing the wound, Daud’s muscles jumping and contracting under his touch. Corvo could feel the strength underneath the skin, trapped and coiled and waiting to strike. If Daud wanted, in the position they were in, he could snap Corvo’s neck.

His hands remained at his sides, only moving to part torn fabric when Corvo instructed.

Corvo dressed the wound, flickering up his gaze to see Daud biting his lip while watching him.

“I have poppy for the pain,” he offered quietly.

“It’s not that,” Daud said, as if too tired to deflect, but did not elaborate.

Corvo did not ask. He had another battle yet to fight. “You’re in no condition to travel,” he said.

“And where am I going to wait? Out on the grounds, waiting to be discovered by one of your less incompetent guards?”

Corvo let his gaze skip over towards the bed. His quarters were small and cramped, and the walls were closing in further now under Daud’s heavy gaze.

“No,” Daud flatly refused.

“We’ve shared—”

“We were _kids_. On the street.”

“Just stay.” Corvo surprised himself with the words as much as Daud.

“You are the Empress’s bodyguard, I am—”

“The fool who came to me after being stabbed in the gut,” Corvo interrupted him.

Daud narrowed his eyes. “You aren’t hoping to reform me, are you?”

Corvo raised a brow. “Can it be done?”

Daud huffed. “I am beyond salvation, Corvo.”

“We shall see.”

Daud’s look told him he did not appreciate such vague, foolish optimism.

*

Corvo abandoned the new reports stacked on his desk and helped Daud remove his coat instead, draping it over the back of the chair, along with his torn shirt. This close to the fire, it would dry quickly, and fill the air with copper by morning.

“Need help with your boots?”

Daud sent him a baleful look as he sat down on the edge of the bed, tucked against the wall. “I’m taking this side,” he said.

Corvo shrugged.

Minutes later, they settled in, just enough space between them to convince themselves the other wasn’t there at all. Corvo tried not to remember that Daud was shirtless, having refused the offer of one of Corvo’s shirts. ‘Wouldn’t want to bleed all through that one, too.’ He restrained a huff.

“Why did you come here?” Corvo tried one more time, in the dark.

“Sleep, Corvo.” Daud’s voice was tired.

*

When Corvo woke before dawn, the other side of the bed was empty, but the memory of something heavy draped over his waist did linger.

Was it real?

There was a note sitting on the other pillow. Unfolding it, he found familiar handwriting.

_Beware your Spymaster._

_— D._

He smiled. Perhaps there was hope for Knife of Dunwall yet.

**Author's Note:**

> prompt was this:
> 
> "Daud gets stabbered and makes his way, not to a doctor like a sane person would, but to Corvo (his office, his attic in the pub, I don't know, you chose the setting and backstory) and sits in his arm chair. Corvo isn't there, but soon comes in and is more than a little surprised to see Daud sit there (reasons by your own choosing) and they talk, and Daud is a little off, but Corvo can't pinpoint what's up. Daud has a hand under his coat to put pressure on the wound.  
Finally, Corvo asks what's wrong, and Daud is honestly too effed up to be shifty, so he semi tells Corvo that he was stabbered, semi Corvo figures it out. Cue A Reaction"

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [How Are You Supposed To Know](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22738900) by [thegrumblingirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl)


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